I had moved on the third book in the Thursday Murder Club series, “The Bullet that Missed” and I was not disappointed!

With every book, you learn more about our mystery solving pensioners, the previous book “The Man Who Died Twice” looked into Elizabeth, Joyce and Ibrahim. This one revealed more about Ron, Joyce (again), their wonderful side characters Chris, Donna and Bogdan, and you also learn a bit more about Stephen (Elizabeth’s husband).

Just a quick heads up, some spoilers ahead!

The gang are looking into the ten year old murder of a young journalist, mainly because Joyce wanted to meet a news presenter that she’s a fan of and he happened to know the poor young lady who was killed. But this is not the only mystery that gets investigated, very early on, Elizabeth and poor Stephen get abducted by a man who was, in a way, connected to the mystery in the previous book. He had done his homework on Elizabeth, and had requested that she kill the man who managed the money laundering for the criminals in the previous book. Elizabeth happens to have a history with the target (from her MI-6 days) and refuses, stating that she has had a wonderful life will happily have it end here, Stephen God bless him agrees with her. Then the real gut wrenching poor of the story happens, the man (whom they refer to as the Viking) states that he will kill Joyce if she doesn’t do it. Poor Joyce!

So, Elizabeth sets a plan in motion to save the man from her spy days and Joyce from being murdered. While this is happening, the rest of the gang including Chris and Donna are working on solving the journalists murder, the biggest challenge being that her body was never found. The chief suspect was already in prison for fraud, which is where Ibrahim comes in. He enlists the help of Connie Johnson, one of our criminals from the previous book, who is also in jail, who agrees to gather information from the suspect if Ibrahim becomes her therapist. Oh, and she plans to kill Ron and Bogdan when she gets out of jail. Something that Ibrahim is trying to dissuade her of in their therapy sessions.

Eventually, things begin to come to a head. Elizabeth fakes the death of the man she’s supposed to kill and hides him in Joyce’s flat at Cooper’s Chase. He also agrees to help them in their investigation and begins contemplating moving into Cooper’s Chase for the company, despite his criminal affiliations. However, the Viking realises that the death was faked and goes after Joyce while she is alone. Dear, sweet little Joyce talks him into putting the gun down, taking a seat and having a tea. He even helps her with her cryptocurrency investment, as he launders money through crypto, just before he passes out from the sleeping pills that Joyce drugged his tea with. We are reminded yet again that Joyce is one dangerous little old lady!

Eventually, the Viking admits that he doesn’t want to kill anyone but is expected to keep up appearances, and refuses to give them his real name. That mystery was solved by our wonderful Stephen, with the assistance of Bogdan, who called in a favour with an old friend who could track antique books anywhere. Stephen eventually managed to recall these unique and expensive editions from his abduction, but mistakenly thought it was an old friend who had them. It’s during this book that we find out just how far Stephen’s dementia has progressed, and I won’t lie, my heart was breaking for him and Elizabeth towards the end of the book. You also find out that the makeup artist Ron is dating has quite a fire to her and would gladly shoot some bullets into the Viking if he ever even thought of killing Ron or his friends ever again. Ron has his hands full with that awesome lady!

In the end, the gang had managed to enlist the help of two money launderers, a news reader, a make up artist, a current prisoner, their friendly detectives, and eventually the Chief of Police and tv presenter. By the end, you find out the killer was someone you totally did not expect it to be, one murder wasn’t even a murder, and another didn’t actually happen! Oh, and Joyce has decided to start writing crime novels, the main character being a detective named after her late husband. This surprises Elizabeth, especially when she finds Joyce quizzing a forensic specialist at a crime scene about decomposing bodies that Joyce has decided would be hacked up by a chainsaw. I think everyone involved should be glad that Joyce had found her calling as a nurse, and not as a serial killer.

So, all-in-all, another wonderful story from Richard Osman about my favourite pensioners. Every book gets better and better, and don’t even get me started on the twists! You don’t see them coming.